Untangling a Humdingerdoozer of a Holiday

(Yeah that’s me. I love my photoshop.) This is my father, seen below- in his prime. (he’s 83 now) My aunt used to think he looked like Robert Mitchum, and in some pictures he really does. My father was a great mechanic. (Still is. He owns a race car now and takes great pleasure sitting […]

Interpretting White Roses

salus in ardunis sancte et sapienter Alice In Wonderland Syndrome…(or as it’s also called: Todd’s Syndrome or Lillipution Hallucinations) sounds made-up but it’s a very real condition. People seem fine optically, but they have weird visual perceptions. They have what’s termed a “rare form of migraine” (migrainous ischemia?). All of their senses are strangely distorted. The […]

URNS Dilemma

URNS Check this out: These are on display in the corner of my cellar. The four of them, (two pets, two people) have been on display for some time now. I know it’s a bit of a macabre theme but go with it. Think of this as a pre-Halloween blog or something. It’s become a dilemma, […]

IF

If it weren’t for the moon, to slow Earth’s spin, we’d have 6 hour days instead of 24. If Teddy Roosevelt hadn’t been carrying his speech in a metal eyeglasses container that October night in 1912 when John Schrank shot him, the bullet would’ve killed him. If Al Capone hadn’t compulsively carried his trademark mirror […]

Life is a Fractal; RIP Maya

The essence of living things are cascades of fractals. Related patterns recur enthusiastically at progressively smaller scales… seemingly random but decidely chaotic. Deoxyribonucleic acid, (DNA) with its double helix entwined like a ladder. Cells. Fractals are seen with the “naked” eye, as in this beehive: And they are unseen (as in this close-up view of […]

It Rains Diamonds on Uranus; Happy Mother’s Day Carol

…I was thinking that sometimes inspiration isn’t so bold that it’s wearing a velour jumpsuit. Sometimes it’s as simple as a cartwheeling spider or a rainbow tree. Noticing (and seeking out) beautiful eccentricities enhance my life. But I’m getting ahead of myself… So, picture this: A young black man is scheduled as keynote speaker to […]

Queen Anne’s Lace and violent outbursts of energy

I love this so-called weed. Don’t go there. This blog is not about that kind of weed. I mean an actual weed. It’s roots smell like carrots. It’s leaves smell like parsley. When seeds form, the flower is a balled up nest. Its white cluster of flowers form an umbrella. It’s the white Queen Anne’s […]

Loss of A Dear Friend, Zsolt Megai

Please don’t be put off by the length of this. I’m not sure how long it will roll on; but I’ve lost a dear friend so here goes. It was October of 2007 when I first met Zsolt Megai. My husband had died in 2005 and The Ct […]

Augusten Burroughs and me and also Egyptians and Stuff

“Guess I have to kill you now”, I joked during our ‘bathroom time’. He rolled his eyes and had this stern face which was his mask, the ‘mask of ALS’ (Lou Gehirgs) as it was called in the newsletter we got delivered to the house. His facial muscles were so weak that he had a […]

Christmas is… and isn’t

Do you get a little sick of all the warm-fuzzy hoo-ha this time of year? I’m not embarrassed to admit that I buy into all the good cheer to an extent and then slowly I feel like…where’s the New Year? I want all this behind me now. I wasn’t even going to get a tree […]

Digging In Boxes

Digging In Boxes There are ‘noun friendly’ languages like English and then there are ‘verb friendly’ languages like Korean, Hindi, and Japanese. In the latter languages, nouns are frequently dropped and names for activities are emphasized in the earliest years of life when parents are teaching children to speak. On the other hand, parents […]

Acts Of Kindness and the HEART

My grandmother died when I was about 13 years old. It’s the last thing I expected even though she was nearly 90. (Or was she in her 90s? Memory fades that detail…) To a child, death only happens to other people; not to people you know. It was a special relationship. I was mute most […]

1886 to 1900: Four Accidents In the Ct News

I share with you here some archived ‘accidents’ as they appeared in a local newspaper circa 1886-1900. I love the superfluous language used in the articles. I find them interesting, and hope you too will. The pictures I added are typical of the period but entirely random. They don’t depict the disaster victims. In some […]

Contemplation on Dead Greyhounds and Women’s Rights; Ultimately Life Lessons

Some people are surely meant to be in our lives, but not necessarily to be in them for a lifetime. I think of course of those people in my own life who came and went on in death before I would’ve liked. My spouse left three children whose ages were 23, 14 and 9. I […]

Side by Side Poems, Edna’s and Mine: Spring and Autumn

I came upon a prompt to write poetry, and I find that endeavor to be a fun thing, so I decided to read my favorite poet Edna St. Vincent Millay for inspiration. I will never […]

Resistance To Change

After our house was remodeled to handicap specifications, I had had it with workers in the house! My husband’s condition worsened, he died, and the last thing I wanted to do was keep up with repairs, because that meant having workers in the house again. So for years I let things go, no more visiting […]

Inside My Head Again

Soothing Places… Some places leave vivid etchings on our memories. When we close our eyes and drift…we’re almost there again. I was about 8 years old. There were crayfish to trap and study in Grandma’s Brook. I never saw more than one claw of the crayfish I named ‘Crab With The Big Green Claw,’ […]

A Life Ends, A Life Goes On

GRIEVING IS NEVER OVER. I wrote this right after the first group of holidays ended; 7 mths. after his death. A mundane task like doing dishes…Something I’ve done thousands of time. Going on without him. One Task, Revisited Starlings and titlarks bob greetings to each other. Partake in barren spoils; Yammering at meager winter offerings […]

Hoarding, Shifting Perspectives or “New Use For a Light Bulb Box”

This stock photo is one that reminds me of my childhood home. I remember when my pigtailed daughter was five, still in elementary school; the only time in her 18 years that she ever allowed long hair on her head… We would walk to the corner to wait for the bus and play ‘passing-the-time’ games […]

Oil Slick Harbingers and Colorblind Crooner

Years ago, before my husband’s diagnosis of ALS, there were subtle signs; harbingers if you will, that times were going to be changing. We were at a grocery store. I live close to the eastern coastline and department store parking lots are often filled with seagulls that scavenge for french fries. They’re drawn in by […]

A Geometric Memory From H’s Terminally Disabled Years

There is a lady in a purple geometric block print pantsuit, so like one my mother would pick out for special occasions. But this lady has short cropped dark hair, so like the smartly coiffed styles seen on Liza Minelli. (My mother is blonde.) She walks briskly down the corridor and can see into our […]